Adjani Salmon Is Dreaming Whilst Black
Adjani Salmon is a British-Jamaican filmmaker who is well on his way to becoming a global storyteller. Adjani burst onto the scene with Dreaming Whilst Black, a 9 part comedy web series following Kwabena (named after friend and fellow filmmaker Koby Adom) as he tries to make it as a filmmaker. Semi-autobiographical, the series reached critical acclaim, won numerous awards and a pilot episode has been picked up by the BBC.
Ten years ago, however, Adjani was living in Jamaica and working in architecture. Besides the one take kung-fu movies he would make with friends for fun as a child, he had no experience in filmmaking. Then one summer his cousin Henry, who Adjani says is like an older brother, returned home to Jamaica for the summer break. Henry, who was studying photo science at the time, had a camera and Adjani was full of ideas for them to create. Sketch ideas. Adjani, Henry and their cousin Kim formed B.l.i.P productions, releasing sketches and shorts every Thursday, including a web series that racked up 400,000 views in 3 months. “We released them every week for the whole summer, like 13 vids. We shot that whole fucking summer it was mad” he laughs.
Henry returned to the UK for school when Smirnoff had reached out for B.l.i.P to produce an advert. “At the time I’d never shot, Henry shot everything”. So he called Henry and learned how to use final cut - over skype. “The video was so shit” he laughs, “it was good but it was bad”. Slowly momentum started to build. Adjani moved from Montego Bay where he grew up, to Jamaica's capital, Kingston and began to make money with the occasional commercial job but mostly he was taking pictures at parties, all whilst sleeping on his aunt's sofa.
Eventually, he began to make a steady income and got a job editing Mission Catwalk - the Caribbean version of Project Runway. Adjani worked there for 2 and half years being taught all the tricks of the trade. “In two years I felt I got to the ceiling - I’m editing one of the top-rated shows in Jamaica and editing for BET” so he started studying the trajectories of his favourite directors and noticed a trend; you had the directors who went to film school like Scorsese and Spielberg and the directors who learned from being on set - people like Guy Ritchie and Tarantino. “There are no sets in Jamaica I could really learn from... so I’m like let me go to film school”.
Whilst Adjani had done a few film courses prior, he felt that Film School really gave him the chance to experiment and push himself “I’d saved up money to go to film school I made sure I was getting my money's worth”. One thing that’s very clear about Adjani is his love of learning. Although he considers himself naturally lazy, he has worked hard to be more disciplined in his learning. He recalls the director of Old Boy, Park Chan-wook, visiting his class and telling the students to study life, not film. “I started reading one book a month, the next year it was two books a month then we said fuck it a book a week, that was learning, that was me studying life,”.
““The year I wrote Dreaming Whilst Black was the year I tried to read a book a week and you can feel it. The series didn’t start off political, it became racial as I was reading black books at that time””
One thing that film school didn’t prepare him for was how realities of being post-grad. Film School prepares you to get an agent after graduation and instantly become successful. “Film School tells you to do the festivals and the circuit and all of those things [but by now] I've made a short film, nothing popped off, friends have graduated, made a short film and nothing popped off... I’ve spent two years not directing [and working as a Labourer at Pinewood Studio] - I could be in Jamaica not directing”. Then came the YouTube successes of Kayode Ewumi’s Hood Documentary and Michael Dappah’s #SWIL. “I'm thinking rah, these man didn’t even go to film school”.. When I saw all of that happening I said ‘how about I write a web series first, that'll open the door’”.
He knew of the successes of Issa Rae and Cecile Emeke who went from creating her own web series Ackee and Saltfish to directing Insecure. “I literally googled the top web series in the world [and] watched that shit over and over and over again just to understand what makes this web series so good. Cool. Dreaming whilst Black needs to be better”. During that time Master of None was released; “Master Of None is about an Indian actor in New York. I was like, calm, Black Director in London - done! That's the show”.
“The year I wrote Dreaming Whilst Black was the year I tried to read a book a week and you can feel the detail. Dreaming Whilst Black didn't start off political, it was just about a Black dude running around; it became a racial thing as I was just reading black books at that time”. For six months Adjani went to the British library Monday through Friday, lining up with his friend half an hour before it opened (to secure the best seats) and he would write all day. “I wrote the whole web series in that library”.
“After a while i realised, I'm a writer but you have to know when someone’s better than you”. He had started 4 Quarter films with some friends from film school by then and co-founder Max recommended Ali Hughes. “Ali came in and restructured [the script] and by September we were shooting our first episode and we shot for another year”. To make money Adjani was shooting videos for plastic surgeons as well as other freelance corporate gigs. It was a cycle of save, shoot, save repeat.
““Film School tells you to do the festivals and the circuit and all of those things [but by now] I’ve made a short film, nothing popped off, friends have graduated, made a short film and nothing popped off””
The series dropped and there was a buzz but by the end of the year, nothing had changed. He recalls attending creative events decked out in a Dreaming Whilst Black T Shirt telling everyone and anyone about the series. “[I’m] sending emails to agents, no-one’s chatting to me. I’m still shooting real estate and plastic surgery videos”. “I won’t lie to you”, he says, “that was low. “My mother’s asking ‘how much are they paying you?’. She only has one child [so it’s] like, are you making it or not”?
Adjani describes his mother as “always silently supporting me”. Before he went to film school she asked him ‘how many who go film school make it?’. The reality is half of film school graduates are no longer in the industry after 5 years and only 5% of film graduates end up making a feature film. “I knew she knew the statistics before she asked me. Then she [asked] how many of that 5% are black? I’m like I don't know, Steve Mcqueen?” he laughs. “She [asked] ‘how do you know that you are in the 5% of your class?’ There are 60 of us. I can be top 3. She said ‘alright cool’. And that’s how she supported me through film school”.
Even after graduating Adjani had to convince his mum that Dreaming Whilst Black was the next best thing. “Half of the time [I was] doubting that shit. But from high school I learned fake it till you make it is real”. Back in high school, in the transition between year 11 and sixth form, Adjani rebranded himself to step out of the shadow of his popular friend Moodie who ran track. “In Jamaica, if you're a track star you’re a superstar in high school currency”. This was around the time Kanye West came out and Adjani was in awe as he watched him profess himself the best rapper. “I was like - wow you can just proclaim shit and people will believe it”’ so he did the same thing. “It's funny because [once] the mental shift sparked, I was seen differently which was weird because nothing [had] changed… and that was just the start”.
Adjani’s background in attending a boarding school in Jamaica comes as a surprise to some people. “When people find out that my mother is a judge it’s like rah… but I thought you was mandem. I am mandem, it just so happens that my mother is a judge”. Growing up in a country where Black people are not a minority, he had to rediscover how Blackness is viewed. “When I moved to England my friend was like ‘yo you on this Black [film] thing yeah’, I was like ‘Nah bro I’m just trying to make films’. At the time I associated Black films with Tyler Perry”.
““When people find out that my mother is a judge it’s like ‘rah… but I thought you was mandem’. I am mandem, it just so happens that my mother is a judge””
But during his time at Film School being the only Black student in his class gave him a new perspective. “I was writing a film about a dad, a family drama, and my teacher said ‘you're the only Black person in the class anything you say about Black people they'll believe it, so be mindful how you write him’”. Involuntarily becoming the voice of the Black people “opened my eyes to ‘what are you saying in this space?’. I [remember reading] Nigger by Dick Gregory [and] he thought he was clued up until he met Malcolm X [who said] ‘why do you think you understand being Black because you’re Black. You only understand yourself if you're self-aware enough. So for me it's what’s the Black Caribbean experience, what's the Black British experience. All of that knowledge I'm consuming informs the comedy”.
When it came to the making of the Dreaming Whilst Black series, he utilised what he had around him to make the show. He says “half of the people in Dreaming Whilst Black are not actors, they’re just my friends”, he had a friend with an MBA in digital marketing market the show after it was shot. “Every image you see on Dreaming Whilst Black Instagram page - he did” for free, although he did get a producer credit. Even the flashier things in the series such as the Porsche and apartment overseeing the Lords Cricket ground were assets owned by film school friends and their network. “I just had access so I used that shit”. “I've never said how much the series cost publicly because I don't want people to feel like the only reason you can do it is because you have money. The point is to do your absolute most, with whatever you have”.
Something else that Adjani utilises is his network. Throughout our conversation it's clear that his relationships have played a huge part in getting him to where he is. He and fellow filmmakers would look over each other's scripts and keep each other motivated. When he was on set, in front of or behind the camera, and saw a Black person doing makeup or costume he'd get their details. “By the time I'm doing Dreaming Whilst Black I’ve got a list [of crew], by the time we got Sebastian [Thiel] in, it was a power team.
So what’s next? Adjani currently has two stories in development and “ideally Dreaming Whilst Black gets picked up for a season and with an American broadcaster”. But the main goal is just to tell stories. “[I want to] really earn a living by telling impactful stories because you can earn a living entertaining but I also wanna make work that you're gonna study”. We can’t wait to see it.
Dreaming Whilst Black is now available to watch on BBC iPlayer. You can also watch the original web series here.
Follow Adjani on Twitter @theadjani and Instagram @s.adjani
Words & Interview by Rochelle Thomas
Photographed by Derrick Kakembo using the Leica SL2-S.
